June - Poem 21
Ready. Set. Go / Kristina Byas
I keep count,
measuring the minutes
from now
to memory.
In All My Dreams, My House is the One I Grew Up in V / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
If I tell it exactly how it happened,
we were in a bar or a club, waiting
for a bus to take us home: me, my best friend,
and that one girl from high school I never
did like. The walls were yellow or green,
and I wandered down the stairs,
my son behind me, trying to keep
up with the woman in the black suit
with the bun in her hair. I opened
a door and someone was taking
a shower, but I couldn’t see who
it was behind the curtain, so we ran
to the street, hopped the bus and rode
so long, we missed our stop.
We had to get off, so we walked
to my childhood friend’s house (but
it wasn’t her house), she let us in,
and we stood in the hall while she changed
her clothes. She was the age I am now, but as
she walked room to room, almost naked,
her body was long and lithe like we were
at seventeen, and I fell to the floor. I almost died
just looking at her. Then, somehow,
we were back on the bus trying
to get back to Mound St.
An Ode to the Tartan Army / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
I fell asleep on the softest June night on chanting
No Scotland, No Party
My brain looned outward, fraying places
back and forth – Boston to Scotland –
leapfrogging who to sing, hug, kiss,
longest, loudest, hardest.
You rolled Boston in a love like a roar.
In a house burning itself,
you made us touch our own faces,
feel the tears there, and know
what kindness feels drawn
across our skin again.
Angel Sonnet 5 / Shane Moran
He leaves the building for the last time, smiling.
Jury Duty is not a glamorous activity, but Beryl
found it interesting to weigh the evidence of guilt
upon a person other than himself for once.
The man was accused of shooting his son’s best friend
after finding him on top of his wife in his bedroom.
Beryl found it hard to say guilty, but harder to say
innocent. The beauty of his wife wearing black
didn’t help this discomfort. But under the September
sky and out of the stuffy court room—he is eager
to tell his friends all about it—guilt-free,
how the group decided a man was guilty.
──────────────────
5. the garden rocks
reek
of jasmine
breath
Never / Jingyu Li
Tucson night, hot night
another wishbone, fast driving car
there’s an orange in my
pocket, take it, it's free.
A dog with a bone and a bark
on tv, the night was hot. I remember
the cowardly dog.
I remember houses burning down
bad things happening
to good dogs. I fell
on the steps, a sharp pencil
stabbed a centimeter
below my eye. Tom and Jerry
were golden, something that would
never end. If you chose the scared dog
over the brave one, nothing
would end. Nothing would change
walking to the store with your mom
for your birthday cake. She fought
with your dad. Still she remembered
your birthday cake. Cowardly
dog, you’ve never been
happier or sadder.
Holding & Held / Stefanie Zito
Roots sprawl, building a staircase as
I climb the stone shaped course
Soil-filled slits of eroded spaces
Plant green flags of marked memory
Holding much in the crevices
Cracks swell under pressure
Exposing raw spaces.
Though I want to be strong
I don’t have to be stone
I can be the sturdy clay of earth.
Soft. Held. Porous.
